An important source of housing support on Martha’s Vineyard will be one focus of the next few weeks of town meeting discussion. Votes on funding for the coming fiscal year’s rental assistance program totaling $560,000 are spread across the Island’s six towns. So too are the 77 households who currently use rental subsidies to help maintain themselves and their families.

Who are these tenants? Twenty-eight are individuals, 37 are single parents with children and eight are couples with children. They work in our banks, schools, restaurants, health care organizations, construction companies, town and regional offices and a variety of other jobs that pay them an average of $40,000 per household or half the median income for Dukes County. Some were born on the Island; many moved here over the past decades. You would recognize them from the jobs they hold alongside us, from the neighborhoods we share, from the school events our children participate in and from the organizations we volunteer for together. In short, they are us.

Why rental assistance? Back in 2001 employers and advocates were looking for a way to stabilize a portion of our workforce while developing permanent rental and ownership opportunities. Using the federal Section 8 Housing Voucher model and private funding through the Island Affordable Housing Fund, income-qualified residents who could pay at least half of a fair market rent have monthly subsidies paid to the landlords of rental apartments or homes that passed a basic health and safety inspection. Anyone can initiate the rent-up. The housing authority certifies the tenant, inspects the home, arranges the subsidy contract and repeats the process annually while the lease continues.

How has it worked? Eighty-one former participants in the program averaged two and a third years of subsidy before 11 left the Island, eight became Island homeowners, four moved into Island Elderly Housing, three died, 11 qualified out as over-income, some were not renewed after tenancy issues and others had landlords whose rental homes were sold. Seventy-seven households currently average two and one half years of participation and $6,200 of annual subsidy with 45 households funded through town community preservation funds and 32 through the Island Affordable Housing Fund. A difficult winter’s worth of news on the fund-raising front continued last week when April payments through the fund were not made.

What’s next? This year’s requests for Community Preservation Act funding of rental assistance builds on the tradition begun by Chilmark in 2002 and followed by the other Island towns in 2006. The funding would allow the 77 existing tenant households, their landlords and a number of wait-listed families to weather what looks to be one more year of tough economic prospects. Later this fall we’ll learn what to expect from Community Preservation. Each town will review its options — including their community housing efforts — before choosing its course forward. As it has done for nearly a decade, rental assistance on Martha’s Vineyard would allow us a bit of stability while we all continue the important and varied efforts towards preservation of our Island communities.

David Vigneault is executive director of the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority.